tion." With the same characteristic frankness he remarks, in another connection, that psychology (the direct study of mind) is yet incomplete as a science; since the phenomena of which it takes cognizance have not yet been exhaustively enumerated or defined, and speaks, at the same time, of the service which, in this respect, might be rendered to philosophy by adequate investigation and faithful reporting.

To so noble an office no candidate can more justly aspire than the intelligent teacher. His occupation renders hin conversant with mind in its purest and truest states, its primal tendencies and aspirations, its incipient endeavors, and forming habits.

II. THE ACTUATING PRINCIPLE OF THE REFLECTIVE FACULTIES: INQUIRY.

Its analogy to Curiosity.-When we trace the natural development of the human faculties, in their first stage of perceptive action, we observe them working by a law of incitement manifesting itself in the restless principle of curiosity,—the desire of knowledge. It is this feeling which prompts the child's appealing question, as he points to a new object that has attracted his attention,-" What is this?" But, as his reflective power developes, and his capacity of knowledge enlarges, his desire of information pierces deeper; and his interrogation takes a shape which indicates a more profound exercise of thought. He now inquires not "What is this?"—but "How," or "Why is this?"

Reason, as the principle of intelligence which gleans and assorts the contributions of knowledge, has helped him to understand the exterior character of the object of his attention, and by the due exercise of judgment, in analytic observation, to distinguish, and classify, and denominate it accordingly. But a deeper thirst than mere curiosity as to external phenomena and characteristics, now actuates him: a more powerful instinct is at work within him. Reason has reached a maturer stage of development, and, prompted by inquiry, sets out the young explorer in quest not of mere facts, but of relations and causes. He thus learns to trace the successive links of connected phenomena and facts,-to investigate the connection itself, and determine its character, to search for interior and hidden springs of sequence, to arrive at principles and causes, to read and interpret laws, and, ultimately, to reach the certainty and the completeness of science.

The appetite of curiosity is satisfied with the knowledge of phenomena and of facts individually, or even as detached matters of observation inquiry is restless till it arrives at their connections and dependencies, and the mind is thus put in possession of those relations of knowledge which constitute principles and establish truth. As an impelling and actuating force, inquiry, or inquisition, performs for the intellectual powers, in their comparative maturity, the same genial

office which was discharged by the awakening influence of curiosity at an earlier stage of mental activity. It is, in fact, but the same instinctive law of the irrepressible desire to know, only working in a higher sphere, and for a higher end. Curiosity, working on the perceptive faculties, induces a tendency to observation, and forms the habit of wakeful attention to external phenomena, as the elements of KNOWLEDGE inquiry, as the expressed desire to ascertain relations, principles, and laws, awakens the reflective faculties, and impels to investigation, with a view to the discovery of TRUTH. In the development and formation of mental character, curiosity, as the desire of knowledge, tends to create an attentive and observing mind, characterized by intelligence: inquiry, as the quest of truth, produces a contemplative, thoughtful, reflective, reasoning mind, addicted to exploration and research, and delighting in the attainments of science.

But in this higher sphere of intellectual activity, the human being is still acting under the guidance of an implanted instinct;-no longer, indeed, a mere unconscious stimulus, but a conscious and recognized impulse of progression toward a definite end and a satisfying consummation. The tendency, however, proves itself equally irresistible in the one form as in the other. For, while the child is sometimes so absorbed in the contemplation of the visible attractions of objects of beauty or of curiosity, as to forego even the calls of appetite for the sustenance of his body, in obedience to the more imperious claims of the wants of his intellectual nature; the adult man may lose himself yet more profoundly, when inquiry compels him to investigation, and plunges him into depths of thought in which he becomes lost to all surrounding objects and relations, and, like Newton, meditates on the fall of an apple, with an intensity and concentration of reflective attention which beguile him of needed sleep, and render him unaware of the presence of food or of the fact of his having omitted its use.

III. THE TENDENCY OF ACTION IN THE REFLECTIVE FACULTIES. INVESTIGATION.

Its manifold directions.-Inquiry, as the grand prompter of the reflective faculties, impels to habits of investigation and research. It not only leads to the scrutiny of the present, in quest of causes and of truth, but ransacks the records of the past, and penetrates into the probabilities of the future. It impels reason to explore the inmost recesses of nature, in pursuit of latent causes. It prompts man to conduct the experiments by which he interrogates nature of her processes, and wins, as the reward of his faithful inquest, the answers which he records in the archives of science. In the relations of moral truth, it

compels the investigation of evidence, the verifying of proofs, the sifting of testimony, for the attaining of certainty and the confirmation of belief. But for its influence, the world would be to man a mass of unconnected objects or facts: he would be to himself a mere embodiment of inconsistent elements, unintelligible and destitute of purpose.

Examples of the spirit of Investigation.-Incited by this principle, the naturalist explores the remotest regions of earth, to contemplate the productions of nature, to survey the great features of the globe, its various aspects of scenery, its mountains and rivers, its atmospheric phenomena, its mineral, vegetable, and animal products, and the mutual relations of cause and effect which all these bear to each other. The scientific voyager and traveler, impelled by the irrepressible desire to prosecute his favorite researches, patiently endures fatigue, and sickness, and exhaustion, through every extreme of heat or cold; he exiles himself from society, for months and years, to pursue his solitary investigations; regardless of danger and difficulty, he bravely encounters every obstacle, and patiently endures every form of pain and privation. He goes forth with the spirit and hardihood of an invader, to extend the domain of science, and returns laden with the trophies of victory, in discoveries which enlighten and enrich the human race.

In the same spirit of investigation, the astronomer secludes himself, for successive months and years, to contemplate and record the phenomena of the heavens, and to immure himself in those labyrinths of computation by which the sublime truths of his noble science are investigated and revealed.

Actuated by the same principle, the historian pursues his laborious researches in the records of remotest time, in the half-effaced carving on the crumbling monument, or the dim characters on the decaying parchment, in the obscure tradition or superstitious myth,-whereever a gleam or a spark of truth is to be found regarding the past life of man on earth. From his devotion to such investigations, no fresh charm of nature, or invitation of social delight, can induce him to withdraw, till he has sifted every alledged fact, verified every event, dispersed the clouds of fable, and let in the pure light of truth upon the historic page.

The philologist, in quest of a particle of meaning or significant value in the component elements of a word, is another impressive example of the spirit of inquiry leading to profoundest research. Whole years, nay, a long life, are joyfully devoted by him to such pursuits. Language after language, by his slow but sure processes of mining and sapping, is forced to give way to his irresistible energy and persevering

toil. Nothing can divert his attention, or turn him from his course of persistent indagation. A syllable or a letter, he feels assured, contains a secreted gem of meaning, the investigation of which will put him in possession of wealth untold; and that element he will trace, at whatever cost of persevering investigation, through libraries and through languages, till the lustre of the intellectual diamond beams full upon his mind. His personal acquisition, purchased at such a price, becomes, in due season, through the instrumentality of his devoted labors, the common property of the intellectual world.

The investigations of the mechanician into the laws and forces of nature, again exemplify the power which the spirit of inquiry exerts over the human mind, and the value of the results to which it leads. The long and complicated processes of computation by which the devoted servant of science pursues his study of its principles, when occupied with the intricate combinations involved in the invention of some device of mechanism, by which the well-being of mankind may be promoted for ages; the unabating ardor with which, in spite of every discouragement, he continues to consume fortune and life in the prosecution of his purpose ;--all indicate the moving force of the mental principle by which his own interior world of invention and contrivance is actuated; and the results ultimately obtained reveal the value of the intellectual habits which are concerned in the processes of investigation.

The chemist, interrogating nature, as he investigates the constitution of her elements, is yet another forcible example of the same spirit. At the risk, sometimes, of life itself, he pursues his inquest of hidden relations, perplexing facts, and hitherto undiscovered elements and undeveloped forces, till he is enabled to enlighten the world by the revelation of a new material in the construction of the physical universe, and an invaluable aid to the welfare of man.

Investigation, in all the relations of mental action, is, in brief, the just price of labor, which man is doomed to pay for value received. The noblest of all intellectual acquirements, the grandest discoveries and most useful inventions, are due alike to this process by which the mind is enabled to read, whether in the world of matter or that of spirit, the laws instituted by the Creator; coöperating with which, man becomes possessed of a portion of divine power, and unaided by which, every attempt of human force or skill must be baffled. The tendency and the ability to penetrate into the depths of causation, constitute the mental prerogatives of man; they lift him up to the rank of nobility, in the orders of intelligence, and make his mind the well-spring of a stream which is destined to flow on forever,—not with

the mere casual or limited contributions of observation, but ever enlarging itself by the broad and deep affluents of profoundest thought and reflective reason, and richly laden with all the treasures of discovery, which have been accumulated by laborious and successful investigation.

IV. THE RESULT OF THE ACTION OF THE REFLECTIVE FACULTIES: TRUTH.

The successive stages of intellectual progress.-Furnished with the interior principle of intelligence, invested with the organized apparatus of sensation, and provided with the physical material for the exercise of his powers, the child, under the guidance of Creative wisdom, sets out on the career of intellectual progress, actuated by the impulse of curiosity, whose tendency is to insure the habit of observation and that discipline of his perceptive faculties by which he is ultimately enabled to win the prize of KNOWLEDGE. He thus accomplishes his first curriculum in the great school established by the benignant universal Providence which careth for humanity, and under whose discipline the law of progressive intellection secures, to a given extent, the welfare of man, whether more or less favored by intelligent human culture. To this first stage of development gradually succeeds that other, in which, through the inward action of the divinely-implanted principle of intelligence, man's own inner, mental world of conscious condition, act, cause, effects, tendency, and power,-of memory, reason, imagination, feeling, and will, is revealed and explored, as a theatre of comparatively unlimited expansion and ceaseless action. Within himself, he finds, at once, the power, the springs, the scope, the materials of this new career of activity, in which he is impelled by the same earnest irrepressible desire to discover and to know, as before, but now working in a Prompted by inquiry, and

higher sphere, and with a higher aim. impelled to investigation, he is thus led onward to that higher goal of intellectual progress, where, by the disciplined action of the reflective faculties, knowledge is consummated in TRUTH, and where man discovers, and learns to reverence and obey, the highest law of his being,— subordination to the sway of the Reason which reigns supreme in the universe of thought.

Appropriate application of the term Truth.-The sense in which the word "truth" is properly used in general discussions connected with mental processes, is, of course, wider than that in which it is employed in relations strictly or exclusively pertaining to the science of logic. In the latter case, it implies no more than the exact conformity of the terms of a proposition to the fact which it is obviously meant to announce. But, in well-sanctioned forms of expression on